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You're spinning in 180s fast enough to make somebody dizzy. It's clear that what's happening isn't some "triumph of individual liberty". So why is it happening?

You're spinning in 180s fast enough to make somebody dizzy. It's clear that what's happening isn't some "triumph of individual liberty". So why is it happening? Economics is often given as a reason, but that's also not supported by data. There is an extremely strong inverse relationship between fertility and income. And the reason for that, as you seemingly were already acknowledging yourself not long ago, is culture. We live in a wasteful culture where people are trained to want new things, and especially expensive things, solely because of advertising and culture. Poor kids with Jordans that they can't tell apart from regular shoes blind, and mid class kids with the $1000 phones that they couldn't tell apart from a free-with-plan one for what they use them for, are the same sort of nonsense. These people are seen as gullible exploitable idiots by the corporations selling them product, and that is how all of society should see them, because it's true. And I think people chase these things under some fantasy that it'll make them happy. But it never does - not beyond the length of time that e.g. you stick to a consistent argument, so they're left chasing carrots forever. Always planning to start that family once they finally catch that carrot. But they never do.

999900000999 1y ago
Ok. You get to be king of a hypothetical Western country. How would you reverse dropping fertility rates while respecting individual freedom? I’m open to being wrong.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  I don't think culture changes from the top, but rather from you and I. And that eventually leads to the top. Lincoln, for instance, did not end slavery - society ended slavery. Had it not been Lincoln it would have been somebody else imminently, perhaps done far more gracefully. Of course the top can enact change through forceful measures, and they can also try to influence culture, but more often than not they are products of us all. And the idea for cultural shift is not hard or illogical in the least. Get rid of the consumerist mindset and you're probably 99% of the way there. Of course the problem there is that consumerism maximizes profits for corporations and GDP for politicians. Further emphasizing that the change must start with you and I. Like you said, perhaps it's time to acknowledge that infinite economic growth isn't really a realistic or even desirable goal. There also seems to have been a collaborated push against traditional norms, which was probably just the natural extreme of expressions of freedom rather than any grand conspiracy - in fact Plato discussed this exact phenomena in his arguments against democracy thousands of years ago. And traditional norms should not define us, but they should be the norm. And indeed they already are, but you'd never know that if you paid any attention to marketing, media, and so on. Basically I think we want to create a society that walks a more reasonable middle ground rather than being on one extreme of norms = dogma, or on the other extreme of anti-norms = dogma.

999900000999 1y ago

Ok. You get to be king of a hypothetical Western country. How would you reverse dropping fertility rates while respecting individual freedom? I’m open to being wrong.

somenameforme 1y ago
I don't think culture changes from the top, but rather from you and I. And that eventually leads to the top. Lincoln, for instance, did not end slavery - society ended slavery. Had it not been Lincoln it would have been somebody else imminently, perhaps done far more gracefully. Of course the top can enact change through forceful measures, and they can also try to influence culture, but more often than not they are products of us all. And the idea for cultural shift is not hard or illogical in the least. Get rid of the consumerist mindset and you're probably 99% of the way there. Of course the problem there is that consumerism maximizes profits for corporations and GDP for politicians. Further emphasizing that the change must start with you and I. Like you said, perhaps it's time to acknowledge that infinite economic growth isn't really a realistic or even desirable goal. There also seems to have been a collaborated push against traditional norms, which was probably just the natural extreme of expressions of freedom rather than any grand conspiracy - in fact Plato discussed this exact phenomena in his arguments against democracy thousands of years ago. And traditional norms should not define us, but they should be the norm. And indeed they already are, but you'd never know that if you paid any attention to marketing, media, and so on. Basically I think we want to create a society that walks a more reasonable middle ground rather than being on one extreme of norms = dogma, or on the other extreme of anti-norms = dogma.